What many of us fail to realize apart from cute side remarks and the self-rationalization that you’ll always have plenty of time, procrastination can be a very serious problem.

Life-altering, actually.

Life’s Little Delays

We know that in general terms, procrastination is the act of putting off something for later that we need to do now. In some cases, much later and at the last minute.

Procrastination is more than just using delay tactics and skirting responsibility.

Without question, a lot of us have put off a task or two more times than we’d like to admit, but for the most part, we limit those instances to tasks with low stakes.

Significant levels of procrastination occur when you have a to-do list of items, and after addressing a few of those, you spin your wheels and do everything but attending to what remains on the list.

DePaul University psychology professor and a fellow with the Association for Psychological Science, Joseph Ferrari, define it further, “If I have a dozen things to do, obviously #10, #11, and #12 have to wait.”

He continues, “The real procrastinator has those 12 things, maybe does one or two of them, then rewrites the list, then shuffles it around, then make an extra copy of it. That’s procrastinating. That’s different.”

Though it seems simple and harmless, too much procrastination can do some actual damage.

From lack of sleep to always time crunching projects at the last minute to the stress that is induced by fast-approaching deadlines, habitual procrastination can lead to significant health issues.

You can also face poor and declining performance at your school or place of work. Delaying assignments or projects can result in below average grades or negative feedback from a boss or co-workers. Worst case involves flunking out of school or losing your job.

Procrastination can also affect us emotionally. For humans to maintain a fulfilling existence, we must have a sense of purpose and generate ongoing accomplishments. Failure here may lead to low self-esteem and a lack of ambition.

Thankfully, a majority of people recognize that avoiding our responsibilities can only go on for so long before consequences become a factor.

But even with the potential risks, why do so many of us procrastinate? What can we do about it?

Well, let us not put off those answers any longer.

Hold On While I Do This Thing, and That Thing and This Other Thing Too

Before you get the idea that the fine art of procrastination is the domain of only party-minded students or lazy members of society, you should put that myth to bed.

It’s one of the most universally shared traits among people today. Though we can sometimes be quick to label procrastination as laziness, it’s not.

Whereas the definition of laziness is an unwillingness to do something, procrastination is a deliberate avoidance of what’s at hand. You fill that gap in time with other activities, until you finally get around to addressing your original task.

If you’re lazy, you’re not doing anything at all.

Why is it that so many seek out ways to delay?

Specifically, this delaying of the inevitable has more to it.

Procrastination is very much an emotional response to avoiding tasks we need to complete. In psychology, they call it task aversiveness.

Triggering these emotions to delay and put off responsibilities can come from any number of scenarios, some mundane, others that carry serious concern. The stronger the feelings against the task, the more task averse you’re likely to be.

A few examples of the most common emotion-based aversions include:

Boredom

Arguably, boredom or indifference is perhaps the most natural way people become procrastinators.

Your task list is full of stuff that is either boring or of little interest to you. Usually, this encompasses personal to-dos but can also include the arbitrary, paper pushing duties of a 9-to-5 job or reading the necessary but dull chapters of a textbook.

When the items on your to-do list are tedious and dull, and the more you think about them, the greater your apathy. So you fill the time with frivolous activities that you (mistakenly) deem necessary and more exciting.

So instead of cleaning your house, you decide it wiser to add to your list of must-see movies. Before you realize it, you’ve spent an hour scrolling through Netflix, and the dust on your furniture remains.

Difficulty

This can appear in two ways. The most obvious is the challenge of a task. Few people enjoy working outside their comfort zone, and a tough project easily puts us there.

In many cases, this will manifest itself with the rationalization that you don’t have enough time now to deal with this challenging problem, but you will later. You continue with this mindset until you reach the point that time is up.

The second part of the difficulty comes from a sense of being overwhelmed. It’s not just one thing, but lots of things. The longer you put them off, the longer you can avoid facing the steep climb you have ahead of you.

The result is often the same as with the singularly challenging assignment. Once your delays finally reach a crisis point, you’re left with little time to reach the summit.

Lack of Value

Often in our work, we are tasked with projects that have little to do with our day to day responsibilities or fall in an area that possesses little worth or meaning to us.

Similarly, students may have to fight through low-reward coursework that is necessary for their degree but is of no interest to them personally.

Where clear purpose is absent, it’s difficult for you to find personal or professional value in what you’re doing. This leads to you neglecting your duties for things that you value more.

In a worst case scenario, you can disregard your assignment to the point that you address it under a time constraint and it never receives your full attention.

How to Get It Done

With procrastination, especially for those who are habitual avoiders, there are no easy answers.

Professor Ferrari agrees. He notes that “it really has nothing to do with time-management. As I tell people, to tell the chronic procrastinator to just do it would be like saying to a clinically depressed person, cheer up.”

However, there are ways to manage and improve the urge to delay the things you need to get done.

While it may initially be difficult, developing one or more of these positive habits can push you out of an idling an unproductive rut.

Structure Your Time Accordingly

As Professor Ferrari stated, procrastination is not necessarily a product of poor time management. However, focusing on two time-related attributes can prove helpful.

First, think about when you’re most productive and create your schedule around that.

Are you a morning person that seems to thrive at the beginning of the day? Front load your early hours with your most vital and taxing projects.

Do you start out slow but then build momentum as the day lingers on? Then an after lunch agenda may be beneficial.

Schedule to your strengths and recognize your best times may be different from those of others.

Second, instead of viewing a list of tasks in terms of difficulty or interest (or lack thereof), look at it in relation to time.

For example, if you have five tasks that must be done by the end of the day, determine which of those five will take the shortest amount of time to complete and address them first.

In doing so, you’ll build up small wins and confidence and also maximize your window of completion for the laborious or less interesting projects.

Piece By Piece

What happens if it’s not a list you’re facing but a single assignment that looks to push you down a path of procrastination?

Break it up and take it one step at a time, much as you would the with the list of five different items.

Figure out what you can accomplish first and in the least amount of time and work on those aspects before moving on to the larger segments.

Depending on your deadline, working piece by piece also means spreading the work out over a period of time.

Focus on parts two and five of a task list on Monday, then tackle parts one, three and four on Tuesday and Wednesday. This way your project is not so much one big intimidating task but smaller, more manageable tasks.

Avoid Tech Distractions

You’re probably saying, “But everything I do involves tech.”

That may be true, but what you do probably doesn’t require all of the tech available to you at the same time.

For example, if you’re working on completing a spreadsheet in Excel, avoid picking up your smartphone or clicking over to the internet until you finish the spreadsheet.

Another way to manage electronic distractions is to set aside specific times to engage in non-work or non-study related activities. In every hour, allow yourself a five to ten-minute break to get your tech or social network “fix” before heading back to your work.

In many cases, you’ll find that as you get deeper into a project, you’ll develop a steady workflow and cadence in what you’re doing and blow past these set aside breaks as you focus on accomplishing your task.

Don’t Wait, Act Now, Time Is Limited

Procrastination is by no means insurmountable.

Most of us are already aware that we do it to some degree.

For the repeat and chronic offenders, it’s vital to understand the root of the problem then identify what will work for you to overcome it.

Understand that you won’t fix the urge to postpone things overnight.

Remember to tackle the small things first and build up your confidence. Show yourself that you can achieve accomplishments without being distracted by meaningless side activities.

String enough of those small, but valuable wins together and soon enough you’ll go from “I’ll do it eventually” to “I’m doing it now.”

Make Time for School

With these tools to overcoming procrastination, you can find the time to finally make that decision to return to school. Connect with a counselor to talk about how it can be a reality for you.

When it comes to privacy, using Google search is not the best of ideas. When you use their search engine, Google is recording your IP address, search terms, user agent, and often a unique identifier, which is stored in cookies.

Here are a few Google search alternatives

DuckDuckGo is a US-based search engine that was started by Gabriel Weinberg in 2008. It generates search results from over 400 sources including Wikipedia, Bing, Yandex, and Yahoo. DuckDuckGo has a close partnership with Yahoo, which helps it to better filter search results. This is a great privacy-friendly Google alternative that doesn’t utilize tracking or targeted ads.

Searx is a very privacy-friendly and versatile open source metasearch engine that gathers results from other search engines while also respecting user privacy. One unique aspect with Searx is that you can run your own instance

Qwant – is a private search engine that is based in France and was started in 2013. Being based in Europe, the data privacy protections are much stricter, as compared to the United States.

After you change the following setting, an unsecured connection is allowed that will expose the remote server to attacks. Follow the steps in this section carefully. Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Before you modify it, back up the registry for restoration in case of problems occurring.

The most common scenario is that the client has the CredSSP update installed, and the Encryption Oracle Remediationpolicy setting does not allow an insecure RDP connection to a server that does not have the CredSSP update installed.

To work around this issue, follow these steps:

On the client has the CredSSP update installed, run gpedit.msc, and then browse to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Credentials Delegation in the navigation pane.

Change the Encryption Oracle Remediation policy to Enabled, and then change Protection Level to Vulnerable.

If you cannot use gpedit.msc, you can make the same change by using the registry, as follows:

Run the following command to change the Encryption Oracle Remediation policy setting by using the registry:Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\CredSSP\Parameters' -name "AllowEncryptionOracle" 2 -Type DWord

There was a fair amount of whitelisting that needed to be applied to allow some social media sites to work as desired. You will want to monitor what’s blocked to determine what you are willing to allow.

Mobile Protection

I started using the Pi-hole® to protect my mobile device from these threats by leveraging the same blocking I am using on my home network. This not only cuts back on the data use but also add layers of privacy and security protection to my device while on untrusted networks.

But what about my ISP who can see my upstream DNS requests. Well for that, we could trust them, or trust in a 3rd party who uses DNSSEC technology to protect your privacy. Use Google, Norton, DNS.WATCH or Quad9 DNS servers.

Methylprednisolone is a steroid that prevents the release of substances in the body that cause inflammation. Methylprednisolone is used to treat many different conditions such as allergic disorders, skin conditions, ulcerative colitis, arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, or breathing disorders.

Friday, March 30, 2018

Today I start my DOSEOAK, sometimes referred to as Medrol (Pak) which was prescribed to me by my doctor to help address possible issues with inflammation in the area of my neck which may be triggering nerve sensations ending in pain starting in my shoulder, down the backside of my arm into my wrist and finally causing numbness in my fingers.

I am logging my treatment here as a reminder to myself and sharing the outcome with you.

7 AM – First 2 pills of the Medrol (Pak)

1 PM – pill number 3 after my lunch

Saturday, March 31, 2018

9:00 AM – First pill of the day. Off to Orthopedic around noon. I’ll be receiving x-ray of my shoulder and neck.

12:00 PM – Completed neck and shoulder x-rays now waiting for the doctor.

1:00 PM – I am now going to be scheduled for an MRI, also my medication dosage was increased by the Orthopedic because he felt that 4 MG was too low of a dosage considering the evident nerve pain in my fingertips.

Sunday, April 1, 2018

I started my new round of Prednisone Oral 20 MG Tablets

The plan:

Take 3 tablets by mouth daily for 2 days

Then take 2 tablets daily for 2 days

and then take 1 tablet daily for 2 days

Monday, April 2, 2018

Day 2 of my new plan, first dose at 7:00 AM – No side effects although, I do have soreness in my hips which is new…

Few hours after my second dose of the 20 MG Tablets – I felt cold sensations down my left arm (arm that was previously in pain). Hand also felt cold

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Today is day way of 2 tablets daily — Took my dose in the morning 7:00 AM and went to work.